Slashdot Mirror
NASA Admin Says Shuttle and ISS are Mistakes
Teancum writes "NASA Administrator Michael Griffin was recently interviewed by the USA Today Editorial Board regarding the current direction of the U.S. Space Program, and in the interview he suggested that the past three decades have been a huge mistake and a waste of resources. As a total cost for both programs that has exceeded $250 Billion, you have to wonder what other useful things could have been developed using the same resources. Griffin quoted in the interview regarding if the shuttle had been a mistake "My opinion is that it was... It was a design which was extremely aggressive and just barely possible." Regarding the ISS: "Had the decision been mine, we would not have built the space station we're building in the orbit we're building it in.""
I'm sure I've heard that the ISS was supposed to have a more equatorial orbit, but when Russia came on board the orbit was tilted to give them easier access to it.
The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.
Sure, that $250 billion could buy us another year in Iraq!
But seriously, the ISS is not a waste of money. When you think of all the research done there, the international goodwill spread there, it is well worth the cost. I do wish the degree of internationality was a bit larger. Simply having Americans and Russians isn't very diverse -- it would be nice to see China/India/other aspiring space powers to join in the fun (and help with the bills).
I wonder if he is aware of the recent wars that the US has gotten involved with. Talk about real wastes of money. At least the Shuttle program, and the ISS to a lesser extent, have furthered our knowledge of science and engineering, rather than just our ability to mindlessly destroy.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
I RTFA and can see what he's saying that the shuttle and ISS were basically mistakes, and I agree. However, I'm not so clear about his proposed alternatives. Is he shilling for Bush's "Man to Mars" mission and saying that should have been our goal since the 1970s? That would certainly be a wise career move (at least for the moment) but what purpose would it serve to send a man to Mars? We can't even get some of our unmanned probes to the Martian surface successfully. Maybe we could try to get a probe there and back to Earch first.
Remember spaceship one used knowledge and tech that NASA developed/figured out.
They were first to do it privately, not first ever.
Losers whine about their best, Winners go home to fuck the prom queen
It's fairly well known that the space shuttle was a compromise between NASA and the military. In order to get the budget, they agreed to design requirements that involved weird payloads and the ability to launch them into polar orbit. That in turn drove the design to be what it is today.
In terms of the space station, it seemed to quickly turn into an exercise to divide up the money according to country and state. I'm not even sure what science goes on up there any more. These days the reduced crew seems to spend their time repairing the place. Crazy.
they wouldn't have accomplished jack, if NASA hadn't come up with the tremendous knowledge base that current teams get to draw from.
NASA could put a tiny ship with barely any payload into low orbit decades ago. Not really all that comparible.
Your post was rated insightful? More like overly-rehashed nonsense.
1) Cheap, reliable, frequent trips to geosnychronous orbit.
2) First generation platform at one of the Lagrange points.
3) Lunar observatory on the dark side.
4) Another Hubble-like telescope at L3.
5) Space elevators, aynone?
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
I think most of us SysAdmins new that IIS was a mistake for years now.
Absolutely. Flood that money into the private market and let it take their chances with space exploration.
I can't believe a NASA Administrator (read: advocate) would be so candid. But the point here is not that space exploration is bad, or science is bad or we are bad at science or we shouldn't invest in science. The point is Government is bad at science. Government is bad at running a multi-hundred billion science program. Government is inefficient. Government is bad at ensuring safety and reliabilty.
What we need is less government involvement, whether it is domestic government or foreign governments. Yes, japan, china and india can help stem the costs - private japanese, indian and chinese firms. Not more mismanaging governments. Other space exploration will just be run by the same types that run the UN. Gross incompetence, malfeasance and inefficiency.
Freedom was foreseen as primarily a US venture for launch and support, as already indicated. Ascent from French Guiana was possible (they were our friends, right?) without too much trouble in a 28.5 deg inclined orbit, but it took a fair bit of delta-V to get from Baikanor to 28.5 deg. Of course, that wasn't our problem as the Soviets were on the other side.
OK, international politics aside.
One of the real problems we saw was the US Congress, and yes, NASA management.Space Station Freedom was often a dumping ground for "retired in place" senior engineering management waiting for that magic day when they could sit at home and impede their wives instead of coming to the office and impeding engineers. That's not to say we didn't have decent, enthusiastic, qualified management but they were outnumbered... or simply out-numbed... by the incompetents.
A lot was preordained, despite engineering advances. "Don't try to convince me, my mind is made up." I could go on at length about the decision to scrap the 100 khz power distribution system on Freedom in favor of the DC system. I was around when the "test" destroyed some computer hardware at MSFC that was used as justification, despite the fact that the test was protested by competent engineers with a knowledge of VAX power supply design. Were there problems with the high frequency AC distribution? Some, but not insurmountable.
SSF was also a training ground for kids right out of college. Get them in, turn 'em loose with little guidance, slap 'em around a bit until they started doing good design, then move them to Shuttle.
We had a lot of design by Aerospace Conglomerate, too. Let's get that design that Lockheed wants, because it'll make them easier to deal with at contract time. Let's use THIS design that MD wants, even if it's not what NASA wants/requires, because we think their design is going to make them do something else for us on another project.
Still, and all, most of the conglomerate designs I saw, worked with, and helped shape (and, yes, I worked for a contractor company, too, but I was doing specs and requirements, as well as working with the prototyping) would have been acceptable, even if somewhat limiting in their own ways.
The BIG problem, however, was Congress. Every three years or so, we'd get a "stop what you're doing, reassess the design, and then start over" command from the Hill. I've gotta say, we wasted a LOT of money on those exercises, and we wasted a LOT of time.
There are improvements borne of waiting time and engineering advances in ISS that would not have been, and may never have reached SSF or Alpha, but we could well have bent metal and flown hardware by 1990 if Congress had stuck to original budgets and timelines and stayed the hell out of the way. I flew prototype hardware in 1992 that was the first piece of Space Station hardware to fly, be proven and certified for on-orbit Space Station operation. I could have flown it 3 years earlier save the Challenger accident.
Final thought. We developed or promoted a lot of stuff that's now common place in the world. Speaking from the perspective of medical hardware development (I also did a bit for the medical facility in terms of GNCC and COMMS) there's a lot of stuff I see in hospitals, doctors' offices, dentists' offices and ambulances that makes me smile and think, "I worked with the prototype of that...", or, in a couple of cases, "I wrote the SBIR paperwork that made that happen".
So, yes, NASA's efforts HAVE improved life ont he planet. Really.
Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by tenure.
Efficiency is the advantage. One of the new advances that has helped to miniaturize "wall-wart" type AC power supplies is they use a "chopper" transistor to chop the 60 Hz AC into a much higher frequency. That higher frequency AC can be run through a much smaller transformer to get the required voltage out of it, with less waste heat generated.
-Jesse
Nothing says "unprofessional job" like wrinkles in your duct tape.
It's all tradeoffs. Linear supplies are also much lighter, at that frequency you can make the transformers very small. Filtering is easier because the ripple is high frequency.
The tradeoff is that the transmission lines become more difficult. At 60hz you can run the power on nearly any old wire and it'll be fine. At 100khz the skin effect is stronger so fat wires to carry lots of amps don't work. You need special litz wires that have individually insulated strands.
Interference isn't much of an issue, at 100khz the wavelength is 9,835 feet long. You won't get anything even near 1/4 wavelength long that could radiate a significant amount of power. For the same reason transmission line impedance isn't much of a thing to worry about.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.